BAM and Aga Khan Music Initiative present
Directed by Saodat Ismailova
Music by Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky

“…for me this project celebrates the spiritual dimension of women and their ability to become the driving force of a civilization.”

—Saodat Ismailova

Across the steppes of Central Asia, modern bards still sing the tale of Gulaim, the teenage warrior who defended ancient clans from Eastern invaders with the help of her qyrq qyz, or 40 girls, Amazons of Turkic legend. Enduring for centuries in a male-dominated epic tradition, this powerful matriarchal narrative comes to full-throated life in the Aga Khan Music Initiative’s multimedia retelling, conceived and directed by internationally acclaimed Uzbek film and video artist Saodat Ismailova (40 Days of Silence).

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These restored gardens are the first chahar-bagh, or four-part paradise garden to surround a Mughal tomb on the sub-continent. Built nearly a century before the Taj Mahal, the Tomb and its gardens were an expression of the love and respect borne towards the Emperor Humayun by his son, Akbar and widow, Haji Begum. The chahar-bagh was more than a pleasure garden. In the discipline and order of its landscaped geometry, its octagonal or rectangular pools, its selection of favourite plants and trees, it was an attempt to create transcendent perfection – a glimpse of paradise on earth.

The hues and scents of these gardens, the varied sources of the design elements and of the chosen construction materials, make this monument an important reminder of the power and elegance of diversity, while the sentiments that moved its patrons, united them in a shared virtue.

— Excerpt: His Highness the Aga Khan at the ceremony to inaugurate the restored Humayun’s Tomb gardens. New Delhi, India. 15 April 2003 https://the.ismaili/speeches